They Say Have Courage, And I'm Failing To
by DarthBubbles
Summary: Just a week after the King and Queen's funeral, Elsa and Anna are still having trouble putting back together the shattered pieces of life as they knew it. During one of Elsa's few nightly outings from her room, she bumps into her younger sister for the first time since the accident, and there are some things that even Elsa can't shut out. Sisterly comfort one shot.


**A/N: Yes, I'm alive! I'm actually starting my second semester of my freshman year of college, so I'm not sure if telling you that college has completely taken away my personal time is a good enough excuse for failing to give my regular readers a good story or not, but I thank all of you for sticking with me!**

**And to the newbies who have never read one of my fics before, welcome! I'm glad you here and am honestly so humbled that you chose to come check out my first ever Frozen fanfic(:**

**Speaking of which, I have fallen completely head over heels for this movie. My love for Frozen is incomprehensible, and I can honestly say I have never felt the way I do about Frozen for any movie I've ever seen. Elsa is by far one of the most incredible characters I've seen Disney produce, and is in a way a sort of personal hero to me. So please enjoy my humble little tribute to my new favorite movie of all time:**

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The prongs of a fork scraping against a salad plate made the faintest of squeaking noises, carving a hardly noticeable path through the plate's polished surface. It was the only noise to be heard in the massive dining room, and was lost to the high-ceilinged space of the area. Anna flicked a piece of broccoli away as she continued the fork's path with the slightest movement of her wrist. Thin eyebrows were knotted and lips were drawn into a thin line as she fixed a vacant stare on the hardly finished meal before her. She was sure the steak was cold by now. In fact, just about everything in Arendelle had seemed distinctly colder than ever lately. Including the youngest princess.

She didn't intend to be cold or hard-hearted at all. In fact, she hated it. But it was as if she couldn't help it- pent up emotion would burst forth in a cold and brash remark seemingly out of nowhere, like...

"Your highness, you really should eat something."

"Well _you_ should maybe just give me some space!"

Like that.

Anna felt a pang in her heart, and she looked up at the butler with immediate regret in her eyes. "I- I'm sorry," she apologized quickly. "I know I should probably eat, and I appreciate you looking out for me." She glanced back at the food on her plate, which was, for the most part, untouched. "I'm just not very hungry."

He gave her a knowing, sympathetic smile. "If you decide you want to eat later, your highness, give one of us a shout and we'll heat that back up for you, alright?"

Anna forced a smile, something that usually came so naturally to her. But while she was truly grateful for the support of the entire castle staff, her heart still felt as if something had been violently, suddenly, mercilessly torn out.

And she felt utterly alone.

She didn't know why she'd expected Elsa to withdraw from isolation after the death of their parents, but when she'd knocked on that door, Anna had honestly thought that the moment she'd been dreaming of since age three was finally going to come true- that the door was finally going to open up, and along with it her older sister. Part of her was angry at herself for being so unreasonably eager. If Elsa was withdrawn before the king and queen had died, then tragedy was only a further reason to keep to herself.

Still, Anna had spent a whole night in front of that door, occasionally making one-sided conversation with the young woman on the other side in between moments of silence. She wasn't sure if she ever wanted to fall asleep to the sound of Elsa's quiet sobs ever again, but it had also been the first sounds she'd heard the heir apparent make in forever.

It didn't change anything, much to her dismay. Her parents were gone, and as far as she was concerned, so was Elsa. Anna had absolutely no one. She'd long since grown past the habits of talking to the paintings on the walls or the dolls she'd played with as a child. So she placed the plates in a neat little stack for the servants and stepped into the castle hall, preparing for another long and sleepless night.

The first thing she saw was a flash of platinum blonde hair as Elsa rounded the corner as poised as ever. Anna stopped in her tracks at almost the exact same time as her sister, sliding a little in her socks across the floor with momentum still carrying her forward. Elsa looked just as shocked to see her, sapphire blue eyes widening slightly. Anna felt the air chill a little, and used it as an excuse to break the eye contact the two had made by searching for an open window, to no avail.

The silence hung in the air thick and palpable, both sisters unadmittedly fearful of making any movement or noise before the other. Anna looked down at her sister's feet shyly, taking note of the bright blue slippers she wore, matching perfectly with the bathrobe around her shoulders and the gloves that had always adorned her hands. Blonde hair was pulled into a messy bun, away from her face, and for a moment Anna was taken aback by how pretty her sister had become as she'd approached adulthood. It was honestly the first time she'd looked at Elsa, _really looked_ at Elsa, in forever.

And then she cleared her throat, and Anna's eyes snapped back up to those that mirrored her own- the blues that every member of her immediate family had been born with, the ones the sisters had inherited from...

Anna cut that thought short, swallowing hard.

"Hi," Elsa said quietly.

She tucked a strawberry braid behind her ear nervously. "Hi," she managed to breathe. _"Where have you been?" _she screamed in her mind. _"Why won't you open the door? Why have you abandoned me? What did I do, because whatever it was I'm really sorry!" _Anna took another breath. "How have you been?"

Stupid question. Anna winced as the words left her mouth. The girl had just lost her parents, it was safe to assume she hadn't been doing very well. Elsa, graceful as always, allowed a small smile that did nothing to hide the turmoil she felt inside. "Better than expected, I suppose." She looked at Anna for a moment, likely taking notice of all the little changes that had taken place since she'd last spent any time longer than a minute with her sister. There were a few new freckles along the bridge of her nose and dusting her shoulders. Her hair was longer, slightly lighter due to sun exposure. The white streak was still there, and Elsa's brows visibly furrowed when she noticed it. Anna wondered why.

"How are you holding up?" Elsa's soft voice broke her younger sister's train of thought and Anna went to tuck her hair behind her ear again uneasily. She took one hand and pressed it flat against the other, playing absentmindedly with her fingers.

"Oh, I'm alright, I guess," she said with a chipper tone that sounded just a bit too forced. Elsa gave her a deadpan stare that needed no words to accompany it. Anna shrugged, being sure to emphasize the movement of her shoulders more than necessary to prove a point. "Really, I am. Going out and... Going to the..." she searched for words that wouldn't break her heart as she spoke them. "Getting to go say goodbye to them really helped."

She regretted those words as soon as she saw the pain in Elsa's eyes. She hadn't been there. She hadn't said goodbye. Anna watched her sister swallow hard. "Was it, um..."

Elsa never stumbled over words. Anna knew that her sister had been hurting but had no idea it was to the extent that she had as much trouble forming a sentence as Anna did on a regular basis. The youngest princess took a small step toward her sister, raising her arm slightly to comfort her. Elsa's eyes darted towards the movement, and she shrank back as she collected herself. Squaring her shoulders, she lifted her chin and spoke.

"Was it a nice service?"

Anna lowered her outstretched hand. "Uh, yeah. It was. We all kinda just spoke to them. Well not _to_ them, but..." She tucked her hair. Again. "We wrote these little speeches down on paper... they weren't very long speeches. They weren't actually speeches, really, more like... Gerta and Kai helped me with mine. When I couldn't read it. I really wish you'd been there to help me read it instead."

Elsa sighed, and Anna noticed her fingers clench and unclench uneasily. "I wanted to be there," she whispered.

"Then why weren't you?" Anna couldn't hide the crack in her voice. She felt the tears brimming in her eyes and blinked them away ferociously.

Elsa turned away, massaging her temples in frustration. "If I could tell you, I wouldn't have missed it in the first place!"

"Elsa..." Anna coaxed gently, attempting a different approach. "Elsa look at me." The older princess shook her head and she heard a sob wrack her body. "_Look_ at me, Elsa." This time firmer, stronger, more confident. Elsa turned, slowly at first and then all at once, fully facing her sister and locking blue eyes. Fresh tears streaked in thin, delicate trails down porcelain cheeks and for the first time Elsa seemed to have lost all composure.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm so, so _sorry_."

Anna felt a pang in her heart. And it _hurt_. She clutched her hands to her chest for a moment, unsure, before reaching an arm out to her sister, letting her fingertips first graze her shoulder before gripping supportively. And for once, Elsa was receptive to her touch. Her older sister daintily touched Anna's forearm with a gloved hand, one movement that spoke a million words. And Anna pulled her sister into the hug she'd been anticipating for years. She buried her face into the crook between Elsa's neck and shoulder, releasing one pent up sob after another from her body. The eldest princess clutched Anna to her tightly and desperately, her fingertips just barely pressing into the flesh of her younger sister's shoulder. Anna felt her shake as silent sobs wracked her body, and the temperature chilled considerably.

"Oh, Elsa, you're freezing," she said absentmindedly as she held onto her older sister. The blonde stiffened almost immediately, her grip on Anna loosening.

She sniffed, wiping her eyes with a sleeve and stepping away cautiously. "I need to go," she said, voice trembling.

"Elsa-"

"I _have_ to go, Anna."

Anna made no effort to hide the despair on her face as she watched her sister slink away to her room. The white and blue door closed quickly, a sight that was all-too familiar. She'd thought there was nothing worse in addition to losing her parents than being shut out by Elsa. But nothing hurt more than being _let in_ by Elsa, then losing her too.

She lingered in the hallway a while, working to wipe away all traces of tears on her face, before heading back to her room for another restless night. She almost stopped and knocked on Elsa's door, but an unbearable sadness overcame her, and the most she could manage to do was rest her head against the entryway.

"I'm here for you," she whispered, almost inaudibly, so close to the door that her lips brushed the wooden surface lightly as she spoke.

"Then stay," a broken voice spoke from the other side.

Anna didn't question anything. She turned her back against the door and slid down into a sitting position, welcoming the silence between them. It was more than she'd experienced in months.

Eventually, she woke up in her own bed, carefully tucked away beneath the blankets. As she sat up and stretched, Anna made a mental note to thank Gerda and Kai for taking her back to her room, likely after seeing her curled up in a ball in front of Elsa's door.

But a small handwritten note stopped her. And upon seeing the dainty, slender lettering inked across the paper, Anna knew that it was neither Gerda nor Kai who'd carried her back to her room the previous night. With a gentle gasp, Anna took the paper and clutched it to her chest lovingly, the two words scribbled upon it lifting her spirits more than any sympathies from the castle staff could have done.

"_Thank You."_


End file.
